There are so many good things that students do here at PHS in and out of school. But there’s one person that really stood out to me, Clayton Richards. Clayton is a freshman here at PHS who plays football and baseball. Outside of school he also enjoys hunting, fishing, rodeos, and hanging out with his friends and family. When Clayton was six he attended rodeos every weekend with his dad and brother. Clayton and his brother were roughstock riders, they both won several award trophies and buckles.

Clayton has a family friend, Eli Vance who has been struggling with cancer. Eli Vance is a father to Kinsley Vance and Dylan Vance. When Eli was 26 years old he beat Leukemia, but now at 37 years old his cancer has come back. For those who don’t know, Leukemia is a type of cancer of blood-forming tissues, hindering the body’s ability to fight infection. Some people reached out and a benefit was held for Eli at Twin Eagle Lake. The benefit included an auction, a cornhole tournament, drinks and food. Clayton has known Eli his whole life because Eli is his dads best friend. When he was informed about the benefit he was more than happy to help out.

Clayton mainly helped out in the auction since his dad was the one in charge of it. I asked Clayton how he felt about auctioning and he said, “I practically grew up in a sale barn, I was there every weekend so I knew the ropes and how things worked,so when my dad asked me to help auction stuff there was no way I was turning that down.”

Clayton sold $3,000 worth of raffle tickets and auctioned off almost 60 items, including gift baskets, weapons, sweet treats, decorations, power tools, coolers, etc. The auction sold more than $30,000.Clayton said selling over $3,000 worth of raffle tickets was easy. He stated, “Everybody knew it was for a good cause so nobody wanted to turn me down and I knew me doing this was helping Eli tremendously so I did whatever I could to persuade these people.”

I also asked Clayton how Eli and his family reacted to the amount of money they raised for him and he stated that they were very excited about the money. They were also very thankful to everybody that came to support. If you would like to donate to Eli he has a GoFundMe.